23 - The Fringe

On May 5, 1999, I received a pair of emails indicating that alien UFOs would attack the Earth on October 3 of that year. Obviously that didnt happen, and the emails themselves contain many elements of a hoax. You may read them yourself here and here.

Is there really something to all this UFO/alien business? How can one tell?

Eyewitness Accounts & Memory What we see is often not really there (Lowells canals) People can be convinced during questioning to remember things that did not happen (many recent sexual abuse allegations) People lie People like to play tricks People tend to want to believe People dont like to change their minds

People dont like to admit when they are wrong

People make up things when they do not understand* PEOPLE ARE HUMAN

Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs)

Most people equate UFO with alien craft The term unidentified actually means unidentified Reports of UFOs go back centuries Prior to invention of airplanes, UFOs tended to look like zeppelins Flying Disks reported by Kenneth Arnold in 1945 while flying airplane near Mt. Rainier - this is where the modern era began - aliens now operate flying saucers, not flying cigars! What aliens looked like also varies from culture to culture and one era to another. Global mass communication has changed this.
The Greys (Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind)

Project Blue Book - 1965

Because some UFOs might actually be aircraft belonging to hostile countries (read: USSR), the US Air Force launched a study to try to identify all such sightings as best as they could. The breakdown: Identification Number of Sightings 245 210 152 126 85 36 4.1% Percentage of Total 26.7% 23.7% 17.1% 14.2% 9.6%

Astronomical events Aircraft Satellites Hoaxes, Imagination, etc. Insufficient Data Weather Balloons (still being processed) UNIDENTIFIED

17
16 1.8%

1.9%

The 16 unidentified cases are just that - unidentified

Gulf Breeze
Ed Walter, a native of Gulf Breeze, Florida, presents Polaroid photographs of UFOs/saucers to the people and press the town. He also reports:

being frozen by a beam of blue light from the craft while taking the pictures 2. he was mysteriously lifted off the ground by a strange force during the event 3. received telepathic messages from the aliens 4. faced an alien eye-to-eye (this one was widely publicizes on TV at the time)
The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), a pro-UFO group, investigates & suspects fraud June 1990 - Pensacola News Journal: Person who bought Ed Walter's home discovered a model "saucer" in the garage attic, Youth in the town admitted that he and a friend helped Ed Walter fake the pictures.

1.

Alien Abductions
The book that started the modern craze Some individuals estimate that 10% of the population has been abducted Given a population of ~ 2 million (greater Cinti) and average lifetime of 80 yrs 5-10/night! Q: Why do we not witness 5-10 people being taken away every night? A: They have mastered the art of becoming invisible Q: Why then do we see their spacecraft if they can become invisible? A:

Roswell
Object crashes in June 1947 on Brazels ranch
Debris collected & brought to nearby Army Air Corps Base

Base press officer releases report of crashed discs

Legend grows of alien bodies set to Wright Field in Dayton Recently, at the request of Congressman H. Shiff (R-NM), the US General Accounting Office released all records relating to Roswell. They indicate: 1. no evidence for a cover-up 2. no evidence for a UFO 3. no evidence for alien bodies Crash debris identified by Columbia & NYU as theirs - part of Project Mogul (now declassified) - balloonborne microphones to listen for Soviet nuclear tests.

The Alien Autopsy Film First aired by Fox as a true documentary in 1995. But:
1. Autopsy not carried out using methods of the profession 2. Examiner does not handle instruments properly 3. Anticontamination suits are bogus 4. Injuries inconsistent with crash 5. Warning signs used did not exist until 20 years later (OSHA) 6. Organs have no connective tissue!!

Etc.

Kent Jeffrey, co-founder of the International Roswell Initiative, along with many other UFO supporters, claim that the film is a hoax. 1998 - Fox reveals the film as a hoax in subsequent airing!

Taken from a Pro-UFO Site

Click On Me! August 6, 1997, Mexico. Much controversy has followed this almost unbelievable film of a UFO taken downtown Mexico City in broad daylight. Shown on countless television stations, and still-framed in many magazines and books, it is alleged that over 100 people watched this event as it was filmed. The film did stand up to analysis for quite some time. It is now considered by most to be an ingenious hoax.

Ancient Astronauts
1960s-1970s, Erik von Dainiken publishes Chariots of the Gods books (the first one while serving time in a Swiss prison for fraud, supposedly) Claim: Many ancient cultures similarly helped by ETs (Example: Egyptians could not have built pyramids without help from them) TODAY: Many examples of people showing how it could be done

King Pacal of Palenque: Ancient Astronaut?

Most experts on Mayan culture suggest this

Depicts Pacals journy to the underworld (Xibalba) at the time of his death

Some claim to see UFOs in artwork

Flying Saucer or a common motif ??

Aliens in Spacecraft?

Actually depict the Sun & Moon

Want to learn more?

Lenticular clouds

Crop Circles

These patterns of crushed grass began to appear in England in the 1980's. Since then, they have been seen on other places, and the patterns have become more complex. Explanations given: Alien landing sites - it was 'impossible" for any human to do this Wind vortices (totally absurd for the complex patterns seen) Hoaxes In 1991 David Bower and Dave Chorley claimed responsibility for starting the crop circle craze. They demonstrated live on BBC TV exactly how they did it. Since then, others have been caught in the act.

Apparently aliens have force fields & invisibility (i.e. the motion picture Signs), travel interstellar distances and/or cross dimensions but have to navigate by making drawings in corn fields??

Crop circles have become a form of art

See http://www.circlemakers.org/

The Face on Mars

Richard C. Hoagland The monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever (1987) claims the feature is artificial

Viking vs. MGS

Happy Face on Mars!

So what? Does believing in this stuff harm anyone?

1997 - 39 Members of Heavens Gate Cult Commit Mass Suicide over a Simple Camera Artifact!

Saturn-Like Object - a UFO that would take HG members to heaven after death? Actually just the star SAO 141894

Art Bell (radio host who has a lot of such stuff on this show) & Whitley Streiber (Communion) post FAKED image of UFO following Hale-Bopp. For a more complete description go here and here .

Original photo by Dave Tholen, U Hawaii

Doctored photo spread by Bell & Streiber

In April 2006, a number of web sites world-wide carried the prediction by Eric Julien that fragments of Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 would strike the Earth on May 25 of that year. Apparently from a psychic dream, he interpreted the Missing Earth crop circle as a sign from aliens that parts of SW3 would hit the earth. He proved it using NASA software.

It didnt happen. Because web pages are ephemeral, I list them in PDF to be preserved for posterity. Enjoy.
US Newswire Web Page: pdf

Juliens Web Page: (as of today): pdf

Disclaimer: pdf

Summary - My Own Earth vs. the Flying Saucers - (1956) Assessment

Bring me a living alien, or a piece of his spacecraft. Is that too much to ask?

Mars Attacks! (1996)